Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Amazon Develops a New Strategy for Social Media

Amazon.com has recently decided to step up its efforts on the social media front after missing out on potentially one of the biggest and hottest technology trends to come about in recent years. The company just hired John Yurcisin as Director of Social Media earlier in the year to help Amazon come up with better social strategies.

In addition to that, Amazon is also building a Social Games Group in an attempt to compete with Zynga, the current leader in social internet gaming, who is also planning an initial public offering. Amazon is also hiring developers and engineers for the project with a poster in the company's new Seattle campus unveiling the Social Games Group as "Worldwide Breaking News".

According to the poster, Amazon is most interested in software development engineers and Flash developers with the latter most likely related to Adobe's Flash Player, a software that is also used to add video, animation and other interactive content to websites.

Amazon also posted social games jobs on Linkedin as well as Dice.com. One post that was added on August 15 stated that the company was looking for a Senior Social Games engineer and that the group is working on a "cutting edge initiative within Amazon." Despite its leading advancements in other technological areas, Amazon has lacked in terms of social media as well as social networking.

However, it is still unclear as to what exactly Yurcisin is working on over at Amazon, especially considering the fact that a spokesman from Amazon declined to comment on any of the company's social plans. However, Yurcisin's Linkedin page does have him listed as "Director, Social" at Amazon and says that he has held that position since May.